Add alternatives to a meal in your plan

The plan says 40 g oats for breakfast Monday-to-Friday. Some mornings you'd rather have rice porridge — same macros, different food, same slot. Instead of partial-deviation logging every other day, you tell the agent which alternatives count as on-plan for that meal item and pick freely.

What the agent needs to hear

Behind your sentence, the agent works backwards to three pieces: which meal item (« the oats in breakfast », « the chicken at lunch »), the alternative food, and — optionally — the quantity for the alternative if it differs from the original. Active diet plan is implicit.

Naming the item matters more than naming the slot. A breakfast with oats, berries, and yogurt has three items — « the oats » is unambiguous, « in breakfast » is not. When the slot has one item, the slot name is enough.

« Add rice porridge as an alternative to oats » uses the same quantity by default. « 60 g rice porridge » overrides. The agent shows a preview with the original, the alternative, and the macro comparison before saving.

Same-quantity vs adjusted-quantity alternatives

The default assumes the alternative replaces the original 1-for-1 — same quantity, same units. That’s right when the macros are similar: oats and rice porridge at 40 g each land within a few calories. Pick either freely; the meal hits the same shape.

When the macros differ enough that 1-for-1 throws off the slot’s targets, override the quantity. « Turkey breast 180 g as alternative to 150 g chicken » — slightly more weight, hits the same protein. « Tofu 200 g » — different food, same macro role.

The preview shows both side by side with the macro delta. If the alternative drifts on the constraining macro, the agent flags it — you decide whether the adjustment is right.

What alternatives change vs partial deviations

Alternatives are pre-approved on-plan options at meal time. Picking the alternative is logged as a clean plan execution — slot checked off, adherence scored full, streak advances. Neither option is « the real one ».

Without alternatives configured, swapping oats for rice porridge logs as a partial deviation. The slot still ticks, but adherence reads lower — the system sees the drift even though the macros barely moved. Over a week of twice-a-week swaps, that drag accumulates.

The deciding question is recurrence. A swap you make freely week after week? Configure it once and future logs pick either option without the adherence drag. One-off Sunday swap? Skip it and log as a partial deviation.

When the agent gets it wrong

Three failure modes show on the preview. Wrong meal item is the most common — the oats, not the berries; the carb item, not the fruit. « That’s the wrong item — I meant the oats » repoints the alternative onto the right row.

Alternative quantity off is next. The agent kept 1-for-1 when the macros needed a recalc. « 60 g rice porridge, not 40 » nudges the quantity; the macro comparison re-renders.

Macro shape mismatch is the third — a protein source set as alternative to a carb. The agent flags it because the slot’s targets won’t hold. Pick a different alternative or change which item you’re configuring.

What makes alternatives worth configuring

Three things decide whether configuring alternatives saves friction: the swap is recurring, not one-off (a single Sunday swap doesn’t earn the configuration; a twice-a-week alternative does), the macros match within a tolerable range (alternatives that drift more than 10–15% on protein or carbs aren’t alternatives, they’re different meals — they should be separate meal items, not alternatives), and picking the alternative reads as on-plan, not as deviation (the whole point is removing the adherence-drag on swaps you’d make anyway). Configured alternatives let the plan flex without losing fidelity in the adherence read.